Two bad bricks - Lesson to change our view

Yesterday night, after having dinner at our old neighborhood hawker center (finally I had a roast duck rice and rojak), we came back home. I was trying to spend the rest of the night reading, but once I read for 1-2 pages, I felt sleepy. I didn't have enough sleep the night before. So I thought of having early sleep and proceed to toilet to wash my face, brush my teeth and remove my contact lenses.

By the time I finished, I didn't feel that sleepy. So I tried to read again. Then my precious son was in my room, watching his cartoon. I told him to lower down the voice, but you know, cartoon, how low the voice was, it was still so noisy in a quiet room. So I told him to watch it outside (living room), and he said papa was watching TV and playing his game outside.

I could not stand it and asked him to turn it off. He showed me his sulken face and started grumbling. He started to talk non-stop. OMG!!! He just talked about anything. I told him that I was reading a book and I need him to be quiet. This time, instead of being quiet, he whispered and told me, "I love you Mummy." Hahaha... What a tactic!! Even he whispered, I still got distracted no? And I could not stop myself to reply him, in whisper, "I love you too baby..."

"What?? What did you say?", still whispering. He acted as if he didn't hear my voice. OMG! I fell to his trap. He kept talking... Hahaha... Fed up, I asked him to talk with his dad or grandma, but not here where I wanted to read my book with a remaining time that I had this weekend. He told me, "You are the one who speak English with me ma... Papa only hears me talking (but no responding)." I stopped him, "But at least he was listening to you right?" He continued and ignored my reply just now,"Ama is watching her Taiwan drama."

I kept quiet and started pitying him. Recalled back memories when he was still toddlers, active, and very cute. When I was coming back from work and tired, he would look for his grandma. And his grandma would entertain him playing games together, while watching her drama. But now he has grown up, and didn't bother to entertain him anymore. She also needs time for herself to rest at night and does things that she likes.

Well, seemed that I had no choice but to listen to him. The book was still on my hand, opened. But my ears were listening to my son's words now. He continued talking, about he was going to fail his NAPFA test (consist of 1.6km running, sit up and so on) - physical training test for students at school, about he was chosen to join Fitness Club at school every Wednesday (since he was overweight) - but he enjoyed it, playing badminton, hockey, and so on, about meet-the-parent session and how happy he was because his buddy, Raynald, his parent was also called to attend the session (proud not to be the only one), about his liking of his English teacher who used to show them video about Diary of the Wimpy Kid movie in class, and so on.

I felt joyful, happy, and grateful to be hearing all that and how he wanted to share what he has gone through in his life, with me. Although I have lost my time to read, I got the replacement which valued much more than that. The fact that he loves to talk to me, has already made me happy. Although he didn't score well in his latest exams, it was not a reason to ignore or isolate him. Not just because of those little weaknesses we, as parent, rejected him. We had to see the bigger picture, his overall being, and be glad that at least he is healthy and chatty, at least he is still moving around, at least he still enjoys the fitness club, at least he still has Raynald as his buddy, etc.

Just like the story described by Ajahn Brahm about two bad bricks. More often people just focused exclusively on the two mistakes (which were the two bad bricks built in a whole wall), and they were blind to everything else, which caused them could not bear looking at the wall, or having others to see it, and that's why they wanted to destroy it. Again, just merely because of the two bad bricks, people often forgot, that other than those two bad bricks, there were other 998 good bricks as well.

So, no one is perfect. And we learn everyday in life to be positive, to be grateful with what we have, and obviously, this journey lead us to be happy.

Take a look at our surrounding, what we can perceive better from someone who ever hurted us before, someone who lied to us, etc. Be forgive and forget. Give them second chance because they were not all 100% bad :) Wish you all have a nice day!!!